Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Parents concerns scrap fingerprinting in Pennsylvania

Schools in York City School District have scrapped fingerprint biometrics for lunch payments after a complaint by a parent at Jackson Elementary over concerns of how "their children's finger prints were being used and they were not properly notified".  By speaking out, effect can be made.

The school district says no fingerprints are kept - let's be accurate, the digital identifier of the fingerprint is kept and, although the school district say children's information is not shared, there is a potential for sharing with other agencies.  Here in the UK this could potentially happen (see questions 50 and 51).  Agencies keep digital identifiers of a fingerprint, much as the school does.  Fingerprint biometric databases can inter-operate.

"a district leader told CBS21 off the record that parents would not be concerned if they were fully informed."  Actually if parents *were* fully informed, a few more parents would most probably be very concerned.